Sepultura Issue Statement on Lebanon Concert Cancelation
This past weekend’s scheduled Sepultura show in Beirut, Lebanon was canceled by the Labanese government last week amidst concerns over perceived insults towards Christianity and past support of Israel, among other issues. The concert’s promoter, Skull Session, issued a statement at the time explaining how they felt about it: in one word, bullshit.
Now Sepultura themselves have finally spoken out, and unsurprisingly they’re not happy about the situation either. Here is that statement in full, via Facebook:
“On behalf of Sepultura and staff, we would like to express to our public in Beirut our deep dissatisfaction with the situation to which we were submitted by the general security office which resulted in the cancellation of our show that would take place yesterday (Sunday, April 28th) at The Palace.
“In 35 years of history, it was the first time we had our entry blocked in a country by a false interpretation of our purposes and values since our intention has always been to promote unity and freedom of expression through music, without making any political, racial or religious distinction.
“To try to compensate everyone who, like us, are frustrated with what happened, we would like to invite you to watch the live broadcast of our upcoming Dubai concert on May 2 in honor of all Sepultura Lebanese fans who could not watch us in person.
“LIVE STREAMING INFORMATION
LINK: http://youtube.com/sepultura
DAY: May 2, 2019
TIME: Lebanon – 22:00, Europe – 21:00, Brasil – 16:00, USA 3:00pm (ET)
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“We’d like to thank Skull Session, Sepulnation around the world, all media that has published anything related to this subject, and Embassy of Brazil in Beirut for all the support.
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“Andreas, Paulo, Derrick, Eloy and the Sepultura team”
It seems the Lebanese government isn’t going to change course anytime soon, so unfortunately the livestream will need to suffice for Sepultura fans who live there. It’s certainly a kind gesture for Sepultura to benefit the livestream to those fans and call attention to the issue.
